Dan Mullen learned 'relentless effort' during high school days in New Hampshire

Garry Smits @gsmitter

Friday

Aug 31, 2018 at 10:09 PMAug 31, 2018 at 10:09 PM

Trinity High School football coach Peter Bergeron walked out of one of the dugouts that led to locker rooms at historic Gill Stadium in Manchester, N.H., just as snowflakes began to fall on a cold Thanksgiving night in 1989.

Bergeron’s team, which had been eliminated from the New Hampshire state playoffs the week before, had closed the season with another loss in an invitational game. He had made a final sweep through the locker room and his players and staff had already left … or so he thought.

Through the snow and the dark, Bergeron saw a figure sitting hunched over on one of the football sideline benches. When he got closer he heard the sobs, saw the heaving shoulders and realized it was Dan Mullen, his starting senior quarterback who had just played his final high school game.

“He was really upset,” Bergeron said. “It wasn’t so much about losing the game, or getting knocked out of the playoffs the week before, but it was the realization that he had just played his last high school game. He loved football so much that I think it would have hit him at that moment, whether we had won the game or not. I think he just wanted to take it all in one more time.”

Bergeron simply stood there for his quarterback and let the emotion run its course. There wasn’t much to say except console young Dan that regardless of the score, Bergeron couldn’t have asked any more from an effort standpoint.

“If someone asked me to describe Dan as an athlete and a person, I would say he was relentless,” Bergeron said. “You always got his best effort.”

Familiar words

If words such as “relentless” and “effort” sound familiar to Florida Gators fans, it’s for a good reason.

Mullen has used those words over and over again in dozens of interviews, speeches to booster clubs and UF practices and meetings to define his expectations as he takes over the program 10 years after he was the offensive coordinator and quarterback coach on the second of two national championships the Gators won under Urban Meyer.

They are even inscribed on the cover of the 2018 Florida media guide: “You will see a team that plays with relentless effort.”

According to two coaches who Mullen said had a strong influence on his life, he never knew any other way.

“He was a fierce competitor, but in a very quiet way,” said Pat O’Neil, Mullen’s basketball coach and assistant football coach at Trinity. “I think we always knew he was going to do a lot of very good things in life, regardless of what direction he went in.”

Mullen's direction has led him back to Gainesville as the next chapter in his coaching life begins on Saturday when the Gators play host to Charleston Southern at 7:30 p.m. at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

Numerous influences

Dan Mullen has been like a sponge for most of his life. No matter who has coached a team for which he’s played or been an assistant, he’s absorbed bits and pieces from all of them.

Mullen has played for career high school and small college coaches, and worked under Paul Pasqualoni and Bob Davie before going to Bowling Green in 2001 that began an eight-year run with Meyer.

The two later won championships at Utah and Florida before Mullen took the job at Mississippi State in 2009, where he guided the Bulldogs to eight consecutive bowls and became third on the all-time school coaching victories list.

While Mullen is effusive in his praise for Meyer and the opportunities presented him, he said the influence of his high school coaches in New Hampshire can’t be understated.

“So many people influenced me, wherever I was,” he said. “Whether it was youth football, high school, college [Mullen was an all-conference tight end at Ursinus College]. You’re a product of everybody. It’s hard to say this [person] was the main influence because everyone is a product of what you are.”

Mullen earned respect

Mullen was a T-formation quarterback and a defensive end in high school. He was adept at play-action and was a strong runner.

“He was very agile and he was a great student of the game,” Bergeron said. “It’s a cliché but he was like a coach on the field, whether it was offense or defense.”

O’Neil said Mullen had superb hand-eye coordination and was a magician with the ball in his hands. The coaching staff began incorporating more Wing-T principles to take advantage of his ball skills.

“The offense was based on executive and deception and Dan was one of the best I ever saw,” he said.

Mullen always made a seamless transition from football to basketball, where he was a small forward. O’Neil remembers Mullen as a tough defender, a dogged rebounder and a sneaky shooter.

“A very good defensive player,” O’Neil said.

Mullen was one of the team’s leaders off the field as well.

“Dan was the kind of kid who was always on time, always prepared whether it was for sports or class,” Bergeron said. “He set a great example for the other kids. He wasn’t the rah-rah type but he led by actions and example. He was a real pleasure to coach and a real gentleman and I don’t say that about every kid.”

Mullen learned toughness

Mullen cited other coaches as mentors in his life, such as Skip Sweizinski, his football coach as a junior when Trinity Catholic won the state championship, and Jim Mullaney, another Trinity football assistant.

“Skip, Peter Bergeron, both of them were awesome,” Mullen said. “Jim Mullaney was a big influence as far as discipline. Pat O’Neil was a huge influence on me as well.”

Mullen said the common theme among his high school coaches was that they imparted a strong intangible to their players.

“Those guys taught you a lot of toughness,” Mullen said. “I went to a small Catholic school that played in the biggest division in the state. We weren’t real big but our guys played hard and we were pretty tough.”

It’s an attitude, among many other attributes, that has stayed with Mullen to this day. And if he's anything close to the influence on Gators players that his high school coaches were on him, fortunes may soon change in Gainesville.

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